Did you, or are you planing to do anything special with your placenta? Make prints? Plant it under a tree? ...Consume it in some way?

I have been looking into having mine encapsulated this time. I thought about it last time but never did, and wished I had later after having such bad PPD. I'm just not sure how to go about it - pay to have it professionally done (looks like the going rate in my area is $200-$250! :eek:) or save the money and do it ourselves - which I'm just concerned might be challenging to deal with in those first few days pp...

I wanted to encapsulate it! But the evil hospital wouldn't let me have it. It went in the trash bin I'm sure.

This time I am pretty sure I an keep it! I'll be encapsulating it.

ashj_1218

January 19th, 2013 08:37 AM

Re: What did you do with your Placenta?

Both of the boys placentas had to be sent away for testing. Both were abnormally clotted and prematurely aged for their gestation. It probably has to do with the blood clotting condition I have. Although it was treated in Kierans pregnancy, so they really don't know why the placenta was not as healthy as it should have been. Thankfully, both boys figured out to come early and it didn't cause any issues (other than a short NICU stay for Liam because he was technically a "preemie" and had some breathing trouble).

This time, given the placenta is healthy and I am able to take it with me, we plan to encapsulate it. We did not have any one local who did it (and I am NOT doing it myself) until this year. And now she lives about 30 minutes away, so we will be giving the placenta to her to do. I don't mind the money, only because we are not having a doula this time around. Last time I didn't find it helpful or even comfortable to have someone else in the room with me. I truly relied more on my mom, who is totally for NCB. So we opted out of a doula and therefore dont mind spending a bit of money on something different. I figure with my third, I can use any energy I can get from those pills ;)

GranolaMamaOf3

January 19th, 2013 08:42 AM

Re: What did you do with your Placenta?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sk8ermaiden
(Post 26991002)

I wanted to encapsulate it! But the evil hospital wouldn't let me have it. It went in the trash bin I'm sure.

This time I am pretty sure I an keep it! I'll be encapsulating it.

Congratulations on your pregnancy!! :D

CrunchyMommaTo2

January 19th, 2013 10:44 AM

I wish we could encapsulate it. I've looked around and anyone around here who does it charges upwards of $1000. Between our midwife and doula costs we just can't swing another thousand dollars. If I could find someone for $250 I'd jump on that!

GranolaMamaOf3

January 19th, 2013 01:14 PM

Re: What did you do with your Placenta?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrskk826
(Post 26991426)

I wish we could encapsulate it. I've looked around and anyone around here who does it charges upwards of $1000. Between our midwife and doula costs we just can't swing another thousand dollars. If I could find someone for $250 I'd jump on that!

ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS?!? :eek: Are they NUTS? Who can afford that? Okay so now I feel bad for complaining about the price....:sneak:

therevslady

January 19th, 2013 01:24 PM

Re: What did you do with your Placenta?

Great topic! I encapsulated the last two after having PPD twice. Someone blogged about one of my friends doing it:

I encapsulated it myself. It was so incredibly easy. I was worried that I wouldn't have the energy to deal with it right after having a baby so my midwife offered to help DH do it. I ended up doing it myself because dd slept pretty much all the time those first few days. There are quite a few steps involved but none of it takes much time and you don't have to babysit it while it cooks. I spent probably less than an hour all together getting it dehydrated and ground up.

This is how I did mine:
1. rinsed it in cold water and strip the membrane off
2. cut off the cord and saved it to dehydrate as a keepsake
3. steamed the placenta in a veggie steamer basket with some lemon slices
4. sliced it into thin strips and laid it out with the cord on a cookie sheet
5. dehydrated it on the lowest heat setting in my oven. This took a few hours and I would occasionally take the cookie sheet out and snap off the pieces that had completely dried and put the mushy ones back in.
6. ground it up in a coffee grinder
7. put it into capsules.

It was sooo easy. Steaming it and dehydrating it are the only parts that are time sensitive. And once it's in the oven you can pretty much forget about it. The heat will be so low it won't burn or anything. After mine was fully dried I popped it in the freezer for a few days because I didn't feel like grinding it up and filling all those capsules. Then I ground it and realized what a chore it is to fill capsules without a pill filler so it sat in powder form for a few days too. Next time I will probably skip the capsules all together and just mix a teaspoon of the powder into juice. Filling the pills was by far the most time consuming part.

Kelllilee

January 21st, 2013 09:20 AM

Re: What did you do with your Placenta?

I had mine encapsulated last time, they are still in my freezer LOL. I may take them after this baby is born. I have a friend who does the encapsulation and she worked out a trade with me, so it cost me like $30

windywoodsmama

January 21st, 2013 05:23 PM

Re: What did you do with your Placenta?

I have five placentas in my deep freezer :O Hopefully a sixth any day now!! They have been waiting until we moved to our land and we plan to plant a tree (probably in our little orchard) over each one.

Now that we're finally here I hope we'll get to the planting this spring. I'm fascinated by encapsulation but don't think I'd ever actually try it!

daneeleigh

January 21st, 2013 09:46 PM

Re: What did you do with your Placenta?

I wanted to encapsulate mine but when I had Mason and we all saw his placenta the Midwives were all blown away by it because I unknowingly had a velamentous cord insertion. The cord was attached to the wrong part plus it was split right where it inserted that they asked if they could keep it lol. They wanted to use it for their classes and I agreed. I sooooo wish I would have taken a picture but there's hardly any pictures of me and the baby. I definitely didn't think to take a picture of that. I could kick myself now!!!

KtKuKi

January 22nd, 2013 04:32 PM

Re: What did you do with your Placenta?

My dad is going to encapsulate mine. When I told him the cost ($200), he ran off to the computer to google how to do it. He came back 20 minutes later and said he could do it...so he's doing it:) He's all about cooking things and he loves working with anything "odd". I need to buy the capsules and the encapsulator but I think thats all. I didn't have PPD with DD, but for some reason, I'm concerned about it this time, so I figure I should take all the precautions I can.

jhmomofmany

January 22nd, 2013 05:53 PM

Re: What did you do with your Placenta?

Well, the first four were born in the hospital so I guess it was just thrown out. #5 we didn't know what to do with it, so we just buried it under our compost heap. #6 we gave to the midwife- she had a true knot in her cord, so mw wanted to keep it. #7 we also buried. Probably do the same this time.

andi2284

January 23rd, 2013 04:29 AM

Re: What did you do with your Placenta?

I had placenta prints made with my last 2, and had it encapsulated after my last birth.